Is the term Indian Summer racist?

It’s been an odd summer, weather-wise: roasting in April, cool in June and July, and just a few blazing weeks in August before the current chill September. So yesterday I mused, are we going to get an Indian summer?

And then I stopped thinking about the weather itself and started thinking about the term “Indian summer.” I had no idea where the term came from. The surface meaning—an unusually warm period between the leaves changing and the first snow—is harmless, but I had a sneaking suspicion that the origin of the term was racist.

“In 1915, two seasons after Louis Sockalexis’s death, the Cleveland Spiders were renamed the Cleveland Indians. Some baseball historians assert the name was chosen to honor Louis, while others argue that the team simply adopted the derogatory nickname sportswriters used back when Louis wore a Cleveland uniform.”

Is it a slur or is it an homage? Words have a rich history and their origins are important, but we reach a quandary when that history is lost. Is it just a team name or warm weather in late fall, or is it problematic? Can a term lose its racist connotations and be redeemed, or can a term that started honorably become racially charged when we look at it through a modern lens? Does it matter that most people use the terms innocently?

Of course, they way things are going, warm weather in October may not be Indian summer, or Native American summer—it may just be climate change.

2 thoughts on “Is the term Indian Summer racist?”

Here’s another alternative for the origins of Indian Summer: It is the generous season when hunting is good and the weather is cool enough to make preserving the meat easier. There isn’t deep snow on the ground yet, but it is cold. Sadly, we may indeed lose Indian Summer to global warming.